Proposal: Rename the "Press" board to "Spammer of the Month" board

[The Cryptovator]

Or maybe a hard fork can fix it. Bitcointalk SV. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Then spammer will choose Bitcointalk and Bitcointalk SV will be ignored 😉. Because scam fork of Bitcoin so-called Bitcoin SV has ignored by the community.

Anyway, often I do not visit that press section unless I manage any campaign. Because nothing useful there. Just spamming from various sources. Rank limit to making a post in the press section is only the way to reduce spam. Let only allow the above Hero Member to make a post there but keep open for reading to all users.

[OgNasty]

Playing Devil’s advocate… All the posts seem to have legitimate content and seem to be providing some sort of value to the forum as well as being in the appropriate section. I’m not sure what the complaint is after reading the heavily merited OP. That people are providing too many news articles? I could see if you were posting legitimate news links and then someone blindly posted the same subject, but if the press links are legitimate and not duplicates, should we not be thanking the people posting them?

[The Cryptovator]

Playing Devil’s advocate… All the posts seem to have legitimate content and seem to be providing some sort of value to the forum as well as being in the appropriate section. I’m not sure what the complaint is after reading the heavily merited OP. That people are providing too many news articles? I could see if you were posting legitimate news links and then someone blindly posted the same subject, but if the press links are legitimate and not duplicates, should we not be thanking the people posting them?

How do you feel when see a user called 'waybesuricata' making posts continuously? Sharing potential news posts isn't bad, but doesn't mean we should create multiple threads for each short of news. They are just getting news from a site and sharing it here. What's the problem if you merge all today's news to one thread and add the link. So the reader could click the link to read desired news. That's the issue. One or more news sites just spamming with their links. As a result, a few potential news went down and down.

I am curious, did you read all the news provided by waybesuricata? If not who are reading actually?

[PrimeNumber7]

But there is another reason why admins might be looking the other way.
The forum culture is generally dying out. People don't want to write on online forums as much as they did before. The press board (spammy as it is) still generates traffic in the same way that the altcoin boards do. The admins might not be willing to put another nail in the coffin by deleting a massive amount of threads in the altcoin and press boards and start banning more people. After all, "all publicity is good publicity".     

The press board generates very little traffic. I noted previously that most threads have less than three dozen page views.

I think it would help to clarify what actually qualifies when it comes to "notability" and to mandate that topic starters in that sub include their own thoughts an opinions to accompany the quoted segments they're posting.

Anything from a site solely for crypto news should be banned, since these sites churn out non newsworthy click bait a dime a dozen, since that is their business model. If anyone just copies and pastes a bit of an article, then that is a low value post and should be deleted.

I just did a quick experiment on applying those two rules to the current first page of Press (ignoring the 3 stickied topics). It cuts the number of topics from 40 down to just 3, and the number of total replies from 117 to 55. That's nearly half of all the replies in just 7.5% of the topics. Unsurprisingly, those 3 topics are first, second, and third in terms of total number of replies. Those topics are where the good discussion is. If we trashed all the spam as I have suggested above, then almost the entire front page of the board would comprise good quality topics like that, which would slowly but surely attract back good users.

I might apply a similar rule that is applied when theymos decides if a new sub is needed. That is to measure the number of threads on the first two pages.

Topics on the first page of the press board have the most recent reply as early as October 25, almost three weeks ago. The second page goes back to Seppember 17, nearly two months ago. Based on the above, I don't think it is accurate to say that what you describe as "spam threads" are drowning out higher-quality threads.

It sounds like your main concern is that the press board is deserted. If I find any interesting articles about bitcoin this week, I will post them, and will try to find interesting threads and reply to them. Hopefully those who find my posts interesting will read my posts and more traffic will be attracted to the press sub.

[OgNasty]

Playing Devil’s advocate… All the posts seem to have legitimate content and seem to be providing some sort of value to the forum as well as being in the appropriate section. I’m not sure what the complaint is after reading the heavily merited OP. That people are providing too many news articles? I could see if you were posting legitimate news links and then someone blindly posted the same subject, but if the press links are legitimate and not duplicates, should we not be thanking the people posting them?

How do you feel when see a user called 'waybesuricata' making posts continuously? Sharing potential news posts isn't bad, but doesn't mean we should create multiple threads for each short of news. They are just getting news from a site and sharing it here. What's the problem if you merge all today's news to one thread and add the link. So the reader could click the link to read desired news. That's the issue. One or more news sites just spamming with their links. As a result, a few potential news went down and down.

I am curious, did you read all the news provided by waybesuricata? If not who are reading actually?

How do I feel about it? I guess appreciative that someone is taking the time to document all these articles for the forum.

It seems like it’s being done that way so that if people want to search for specific articles or dates they can easily. Just a guess. I have no idea what the motivation is.

I haven’t read many articles from that section. The only time I ever end up there is when I’m searching for something specific.

[LoyceV]

Anything from a site solely for crypto news should be banned

That makes sense, reaching the NY Times is much more notable than some site with "coin" in it's name.

How about moving any topic created from a site with "coin" in their URL and more than a few topics per month to one thread in the Press section dedicated to that site? Call it "Press releases from Coinxxxxxx.com" and it stops flooding the board with useless topics.

[Pmalek]

Because, like Bitcoin Discussion, many good members ignore the board entirely because it is overrun with spammers. Get rid of the spammers, and they will slowly migrate back again.

You can always create self-moderated threads, moderate them however you want, and delete everything you don't want to see there without having to explain to anyone why you are doing that. The forum supports local rules, so if you have your only blacklist, you can even add rules that prevents those you consider spammers from participating in discussions. That way you will engage a better group of people in discussion or your topics will die because members will be afraid to post in them. Ignoring a whole sub-board doesn't seem like a proper solution.

How about moving any topic created from a site with "coin" in their URL and more than a few topics per month to one thread in the Press section dedicated to that site? Call it "Press releases from Coinxxxxxx.com" and it stops flooding the board with useless topics.

It's a good suggestion. If links from that site appear 5 or more times in the first 1-2 pages in the Press board, a dedicated thread just for that news site should be created. But will admins be interested in moderating it that way? We should get some feedback from them...

[o_e_l_e_o]

but if the press links are legitimate and not duplicates, should we not be thanking the people posting them?

If someone wants to read cointelegraph.com (or whichever site the spammer of the month is spamming), then they can simply go to cointelegraph.com. They don't need someone to copy and paste 5 articles a day to the Press board. The fact that these threads generally have 10-20 views and 0-2 replies is proof that they are not generating any discussion and no one actually cares about them.

How about moving any topic created from a site with "coin" in their URL and more than a few topics per month to one thread in the Press section dedicated to that site? Call it "Press releases from Coinxxxxxx.com" and it stops flooding the board with useless topics.

Not a bad idea, but it requires buy-in from admin and mods, and since we apparently don't care enough about Press to delete blatant spam there, then I can't see this happening either. Hence my proposal to just name it what it is.

You can always create self-moderated threads, moderate them however you want, and delete everything you don't want to see there without having to explain to anyone why you are doing that.

Yes, but this only helps on threads you create. You still aren't going to use a board if for every 1 good thread self moderated by an intelligent user there are 20+ spam threads you have to wade through first.

[DooMAD]

Now it's not clear if there is no interest, or if good posters are discouraged to step into the pile of shit.

Get rid of the spammers, and they will slowly migrate back again.

I really hope it is just that.  And I'd really like to find out.  Aside from this topic existing, how else can we get the ball rolling on this?  Seems like the only people who are happy with the Press board in its current state are the spammers. 

Come on admins.  Just two little extra rules.  No cryptomedia sites.  Independent thoughts and commentary from the OP are required to accompany the quoted article.

Let's make it happen.

[Lucius]

Aside from this topic existing, how else can we get the ball rolling on this? 

If at least a few users reported each problematic thread each day, there might be some effect and the reports would not remain unhandled. 1 or 2 users can't make any difference, that's something I'm sure of. My last 5 reports against the biggest spammer in that board have been resolved positively though.

[DooMAD]

Bumping just to see if there's any more support.  Topics should have some substance to them.  A new thread containing nothing more than a link and a quote should be considered "low quality".  It's just lazy posting.

[LeGaulois]

Bumping just to see if there's any more support.  Topics should have some substance to them.  A new thread containing nothing more than a link and a quote should be considered "low quality".  It's just lazy posting.

Perhaps it's time to blame the persons who manage a campaign and accept such shitposers who give almost nothing other than bringing down the value of the forum (at least the content/discussion)

See another example a bit different https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=215813;sa=showPosts
How that's good for the forum and its users (us)

I doubt Theymos will change something for the Press board, the problem is not enough important to deserve a change. Not enough users complaining. But it's normal since we're not a lot using the board, it's subjective.

The best we could do is to report the posts to moderators as low-quality. Because it's the press board it doesn't mean you can copy-paste a description with a link and nothing else. At least, give an opinion, engage in a discussion.
Not even sure it helps, depending on who's moderating and what the person thinks about your argument.

[Pmalek]

Perhaps it's time to blame the persons who manage a campaign and accept such shitposers who give almost nothing other than bringing down the value of the forum (at least the content/discussion)

I doubt that any of the popular managers who manage Bitcoin-paying signature campaigns would accept such posts knowingly. If some of them do get counted, it might just be that they are not aware of it. A simple PM informing them about what is happening in the Press board could change that.

When we are talking about the majority of altcoin bounties that include signature campaigns, I am sure that they don't care about the quality their participants produce one bit. It's all about the visibility of their signatures. One could try to inform them and advice them not to count such posts, but I think that's just a waste of time.

What else can be done? Tagging them for mismanaging campaigns? I doubt spammers care that the campaigns they participate in are managed by someone with red paint on his profile.   

[o_e_l_e_o]

Come on admins.

I PMed theymos the day I opened this thread, explaining in more detail the issues with the Press board and linking to this thread. I have had no response, which I can only assume means he is content with the current situation. Given that, and that we have also had no response in this thread or any of the many previous threads about the Press board, there is probably no point in us continuing to push to try to clean the board up.

I remain confused why we are happy to let spammers run bitcointalk in to the ground and push away good users and good discussion in the name of free speech. I will continue to always defend free speech, but there is a very obvious difference between protecting controversial thoughts and ideas and allowing utter spam to ruin the forum.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I have had no response, which I can only assume means he is content with the current situation.

If he was, he would have replied to you in a well established manner. Judging by the arguments said in this thread and that he left you on read seems more like he doesn't care.

[Lucius]

I remain confused why we are happy to let spammers run bitcointalk in to the ground and push away good users and good discussion in the name of free speech.

Perhaps the standards are softening more and more because the forum has less and less active users and each is starting to be important from the perspective of the administration, especially if it is not a newbie which can be nuked very easily if he did something wrong. I don't know how else to explain that someone has hundreds of posts deleted by a moderator and still not permabanned - it has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Perhaps the simplest thing would be to disable signatures in the Press board, and this is not something that would require major technical intervention by admin. Our main spammer in that board would probably give up right away if that happened.

[naim027]

Huh. That news Reporters Know that Bitcointalk is the biggest Crypto traffic source for them. And they don't want to miss the opportunity. They will come back with theirs alts if you ban them.

I haven't visited the Press board in my entire Bitcointalk life before saw your thread. I just checked the board and I just figured out they are doing whatever they want and no one can stop them. lol.
IDK if they understand that "No experienced members go to That boards to read their shit news". Only a few Newbies like me visited that board and they trying to find if there is any income source. Most of the comments are like "Nice Report sir" 

IDK if merit source visit that board. I would like to suggest they do not waste their valuable time there. I believe they cannot find a post for merit. xD.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Perhaps the standards are softening more and more because the forum has less and less active users and each is starting to be important from the perspective of the administration, especially if it is not a newbie which can be nuked very easily if he did something wrong.

Where can I find the stats on the number of active users? The stats on https://ninjastic.space regarding the number of posts per month show that we are significantly higher than we were a year ago. Still, if good users are leaving or not signing up to the forum because of the spam issue, then giving spammers free reign to spam isn't exactly going to help the issue.

Perhaps the simplest thing would be to disable signatures in the Press board, and this is not something that would require major technical intervention by admin. Our main spammer in that board would probably give up right away if that happened.

I've said this before, but this is not a solution. Many of the spammer accounts in the Press board are owned, operated, employed or paid by various crypto "news" sites such as CoinIdol or CoinTelegraph. As long as they can get their links in to each post, then they don't care about having a signature.

IDK if merit source visit that board. I would like to suggest they do not waste their valuable time there. I believe they cannot find a post for merit.

I am a merit source. I visit the board not infrequently. Any merit I award is invariably to a thoughtful reply, and never to one of these topic spammers.

[Lucius]

Where can I find the stats on the number of active users? The stats on https://ninjastic.space regarding the number of posts per month show that we are significantly higher than we were a year ago.

In my opinion, the best source for this information is @LoyceV Active users, top posters and most active topics in the past 1h, 24h and 7d. Statistics for the last 7 days say that we had a total of 6663 active users, but of that 1576 Brand new, and 2684 Newbie. It would be interesting to compare this data with years ago, but my subjective impression is that we have a lot less active users than before

Still, if good users are leaving or not signing up to the forum because of the spam issue, then giving spammers free reign to spam isn't exactly going to help the issue.

I doubt that's why people leave, although for some the forum is probably not as interesting as before, not only because of the quality, but also because it may no longer be profitable for them unlike before.

I've said this before, but this is not a solution. Many of the spammer accounts in the Press board are owned, operated, employed or paid by various crypto "news" sites such as CoinIdol or CoinTelegraph. As long as they can get their links in to each post, then they don't care about having a signature.

You may be right, but at least we would take away their ability to earn double (from links and signature campaigns).

[PrimeNumber7]

Come on admins.

I PMed theymos the day I opened this thread, explaining in more detail the issues with the Press board and linking to this thread. I have had no response, which I can only assume means he is content with the current situation. Given that, and that we have also had no response in this thread or any of the many previous threads about the Press board, there is probably no point in us continuing to push to try to clean the board up.

I remain confused why we are happy to let spammers run bitcointalk in to the ground and push away good users and good discussion in the name of free speech. I will continue to always defend free speech, but there is a very obvious difference between protecting controversial thoughts and ideas and allowing utter spam to ruin the forum.

I have argued previously that the press board is sufficiently empty that the spammers are not crowding out the legitimate members from posting. Your response was that the spammers are enticing legitimate members away from posting.

I think the above is a fair argument, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it.

I would also point out that threads in the press board is a function of news articles about bitcoin. I might ask which news articles you would like to see discussed in the press board? In the past few weeks, I have created threads (actually thread, singular) about an article I found in a reputable news organization.

Really since bcash split from bitcoin, there has been very little drama, or contention about the future of bitcoin. There really haven’t been any contentious BIP proposals that split the community. As you are aware, bitcoin had no “leader”, so there is no single person that bitcoin writers will write about that affects bitcoin.

I think the reality is that there is little that will or could happen in the bitcoin world that would potentially make front page news. There is the price, but that is about it. Difficulty changes are automatic, halvings are a fun celebration for those who are involved in bitcoin because of their infrequency, but is really not news. It is difficult to write a news article about some upgrade that ~everyone agrees on.